


I've Got You

by Lathbora_viran



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age 2
Genre: loss of parent, maybe a grief trigger?, process of grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 12:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12321285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lathbora_viran/pseuds/Lathbora_viran
Summary: Hawke finally falls apart after years of loss, stress, and endless fighting to protect what is left of her small family. Discovering that humor can only hide the exhaustion so long, she pushes everyone away and retreats. It's too much to have to deal with one more platitude or stay strong for one more city magistrate when her chest is collapsing from the inside. Someone refuses to let her go through it alone...





	I've Got You

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who reads this who also read Escaping Ostagar, I deep apologise. A lot of shit came up at once, I ended up working three jobs. But November 1st I'll be down to one again and I swear by all that is holy and unholy and just plain weird that I will get the last 11 or 12 chapters of it up by the end of the year. Its made me feel so terrible that this unannounced hiatus came up. Please enjoy these small things I'm posting while I try and get up and running again.

It felt like all of the blood in her body was pulsing through her face until it hurt. When Hawke escorted Gamlen to the door and closed it behind him, she rested her head on its surface, her lips in a thin line. There was no laughter in this house tonight. She wanted no one here.

Swallowing hard, she twisted until her back was against the door to rest for a moment before dragging herself off of it and walking back into the flickering firelight in the front hall. “Bodahn. You should get out for a bit, take some of the gold on the table and get a nice dinner for yourself and Sandal. You’ve earned it.”

As she stared into the fire, she knew he was hesitating but then he touched her elbow light, “As you wish, m’Lady. Do try and get some rest though, I worry about you.” Her breath was sludge in her tight chest, the exhaustion weighing her down. A heavy sigh escaped as the door closed quietly and the house went quiet. Part of her wanted to ask Orana to take Edda out on a walk but it wasn’t fair to her. She hadn’t gone outside once since her arrival and the mabari would run down the street with the elf flapping like a weather-vane she was so tiny.

Speaking of Edda, the hound was whining slightly at her feet so she crouched to scruff her ears but none of her usual jokes came. Even the mabari seemed more subdued. Hawke didn’t even have the energy to blink anymore so she stood and woodenly climbed the stairs.

Bile burned the back of her throat as she purposely avoided looking at anything but her feet, passing the closed room as quickly as her worn body could manage. Finally lifting her head as she entered her room, the rogue dragged hands crusted with dirt and dried blood through a messy shock of black hair. Dead gaze falling on the desk to her right, she was barely breathing anymore as she approached it.

Tender fingers touched the page it was open to lightly enough the parchment barely moved, dead eyes roving over the scrawl.

_T_ _ook Mother to-_

With a whip of her arm she had snatched the book and thrown it. Perhaps it was lucky that her emotions ruined her aim, as it bounced off the mantel and collapsed with a distressed flutter of pages to the floor a foot or two away from the fire in the hearth. The failure tore a soul deep, ugly scream from her gut that burned her throat and tossed her head back with its force. All at once the tension in her body was so great that she had to get it out, had to do  **something**.

Hands wrapped in steel crashed down on the wooden surface, an arm carelessly sweeping every trinket from it to crash to the ground before she lifted one end of the offending table and sent it tumbling away. The chair was lifted and thrown into the wall.

“Mistress!” The alarm and fear in Orana’s voice made her flinch. Hawke paused but she wouldn’t be able to for long. Her veins burned and her breath rasped as a raw gaze fell on the trembling elf.

“Take the lute. Go downstairs.” She kept the words as calm as she could but she simply could not hold it together for anyone else anymore. Not today. She had let Gamlen curse her, she had penned a supportive note to Bethany. Handled platitudes from friends and told them she would make it. She had carried this entire damned city for years as it took everything away from her. Orana hesitated but nodded and rushed to the fireplace to rescue the instrument she loved to whisk it downstairs. 

Hawke could still feel the chill of waxy flesh and the tremble of a piecemeal body with her mother’s face as it went still. It made her cringe away from her own skin as she stumbled back farther into the room. Her back hit the wall and red flashed to her right. Lunging forward, shaking hands sank viciously into the drapes that framed a hanging picture and she tore them down. The metal holding them clanged off of the floor pleadingly but there was no mercy tonight. Wrapping her fingers around the back of one of her matching wardrobes, she took two tries to rock it over onto its face with a feral grimace.

Stalking away from it, she circled the room only to heft a small chest from its spot by the door across her room where the thing fell open from impact above her headboard. It’s contents spilled across her sheets but the pounding tide of agony in her body wasn’t appeased in the slightest. Two more cabinets were pulled over and a potted plant was lifted and shattered against the opposing wall. Some pieces fell against the pools of red but others hit the floor like sharp cries.

Falling against the bedpost, the only item safe from her for its weight, she leaned back against it and fractured the massive vase to the right of the fireplace with a well placed kick. Panting for the next wheezing breath, the world a whirl around a mind that simply couldn’t take in anymore, she made for the last dresser but something gave as she reached for it. Weak knees struck the stone with a crunch from her armor as she clawed at the wood, her forehead rebounding once from its door before settling against it in defeat. The welling came in her eyes, hot and bitter, her shoulders contorting as she gave one last fight to hold it in.

As the first salty tear fell, a low groan wrenched its way through her and she dissolved into a broken sob. One fist weakly struck the wood again as her body folded further, a vein standing out in her neck as a silent scream twisted her face and drew her torso so tight her lungs complained at her. Spots flickered in the darkness behind aching eyelids.

“Shit… Hawke.” Sorrow and pain welled in the gruff voice before strong hands were on her waist and pulling her up from the floor. The clasps on her breastplate were loosened and it fell from her to the floor, making it far easier for the dwarf to finish lifting her against his chest. “Come here. Come here, Hawke. I’ve gotcha.” The words were quiet, soothing for once, but still heavy as her arms circled his shoulders and her whole body shook.

Varric settled onto the ground with his back to the side of the bed, wrapping the woman up in a fierce hold that gave her no room to get away. She didn’t try either. Thick fingers intertwined with her hair and gripped to steady her head as he rocked her and stared up at the ceiling with her face pressed to his neck. “I knew that bullshit you told the Rivaini was a face.” He seemed to just be rambling now, saying whatever came to his mind first so that she would still hear his voice. “I’ve gotcha, Hawke. You’re not alone. I’m here, I won’t let anything else happen right now. I cant promise that later, but you won’t ever have to face it alone. I’ve gotcha.” Swallowing back emotion, he rested his cheek against her too-hot forehead and thanked the Maker he had decided to stop by despite the late hour.


End file.
